


But A Day

by friends_call_me_wobbly_hands



Series: Out Of Time [3]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gen, Grief/Mourning, One Shot, Underfell, Undyne Does Not Know How To Emotion Either, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, a (kinda) happy ending implied, basically a big what-if, except there is little to enjoy, just.... a lot of sad, sans Does Not Know How To Emotion, so take that and enjoy, they will probably go live with toriel eh, warning: Puke Happens, weird relationships emerging out of mutual pain, well that is not very happy but that is the best they get, what would happen if papyrus fell down instead of sans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-28 01:18:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12594828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friends_call_me_wobbly_hands/pseuds/friends_call_me_wobbly_hands
Summary: “How could it happen?” is the first thing Undyne says when Sans comes to pick her up as always.





	But A Day

**Author's Note:**

> Not canon. Just a big "what-if". Well. Take that.

“... _How could it happen?_ ” is the first thing Undyne says when Sans comes to pick her up as always.

It has Sans raising a brow. Not the phrase itself, because, well, because. But rather the fact her gaze is too clear and steady for someone who has just drunk her own weight, according to the locals.

“Dunno.” The lights are dim. It smells like bad liquor and even worse decisions. The bartender nods to him like to a regular, and he shrugs in return. He helps Undyne from the stool and pries her away from the counter, with some difficulty since she is twice as tall and not exactly cooperating. It's not so much resisting as she is simply reluctant to move. Her body feels like a lump of dough, falling apart all over him. Not literally, of course.

Few people look at them as they stumble towards the door. Maybe it's because they are in a similar condition. Maybe it's just not such a strange sight.

“I just cannot _understand_...” she starts, very sober, but then suddenly she is heaving, and Sans only has enough time to drag her out of the bar and into some bushes before the inevitable strikes. Teleporting is a neat ability sometimes.

He holds her hair while she is spitting her insides out, and he is not happy with this but it's the least he can do.

“Sans”, Undyne breathes out between two waves of nausea. “Sans...”

"Hey, don't talk with your mouth full", Sans tells her, and Undyne still has enough alcohol in her system to start laughing, and then she pukes again and laughs again and somewhere on the way it turns into sobbing, and Sans holds her hair while she is throwing up and bawling in a stinky alley behind a shitty bar in the least decent corner of Waterfall, and it is all a big mess and nothing more.

Undyne is a mess herself. He half-drags her to her house, because it feels like something he should do. She still alternates between laughing and crying and slurring. Most of the liquor should have left her system already, back in the stinky alley, but hey, Sans is not an expert in fish monster metabolism.

He makes her go to bed. He probably should leave a glass of water for her obvious future hangover; he doesn’t.  Before he is out of there, she catches him by the sleeve, as swift as always. She is still Undyne, even when shamelessly drunk.

“ _Why_?” she asks him, once again staring him down with those heavy, clear eyes. “Why would it happen? _How_?”

“No idea”, he answers frankly, pries her fingers open and leaves.

 

***

 

Sans does everything he can think of.

He visits all his stations, just in case. He buys fresh bottles of condiments and stuffs them on the shelves among the others: still full, not even opened. He sells a few dozen hotdogs and hotcats, teasing his customers over their love of hot animals. He meets Snowdrake (the kid is weirdly clingy lately) and chuckles over his jokes, and then tells him some of his own jokes and laughs his ass off as the disgusted teenager retreats in haste. He comes to the door and chats with the old lady behind until she excuses herself and goes to water her flowers or something. Sans is not sure if it is an euphemism or if she has a real deal flowerbed somewhere there. Well, she may as well have one. The woman seems like something out of the world.

Out of _his_ world, at least.

He waits patiently at his station and throws a couple of bones for the passing dogs. They wave at him. He waves back, with his middle finger. They laugh. It is a very productive day.

Then, once his working hours are over and he has no excuse to hang there, Sans moves to Grillby’s. He has a laugh or two, and then he has a drink or two, and the evening flows smoothly into the night, and the next thing Sans knows is Grillby, nudging him towards the door in silence because the closing hour was an hour ago.

Outside, the cold air collides with him like a truck. Sans shivers and trudges through the snow, as slowly as he can. He could teleport, of course. But he doesn’t. Because, well. Because.

He is home sooner than he wants to. He sighs, opening the door with a clank of the keys. The living room is dark and silent. He flips on the light switch and walks in, not bothering to wipe off his boots. They make squashing sounds and leave chunks of melting snow on the floor.

“I’m home, Papyrus”, he mumbles habitually, staring at his feet as he stumbles towards the couch.

His answer is silence.

 

***

 

Undyne wakes up and her first sensation is pain.

She groans and presses her arm to her face, trying to cut off what little light gets into the room through the window. She does not remember the last night exactly. She does not remember getting into bed. Sans probably helped her. She doesn’t care. Her mouth tastes like shit, and she wonders if she threw up and where it landed and if she has to clean the floor. Maybe she threw up all over Sans. Heh. Serves him right for dragging her home every time.

She cannot care, really.

She desperately needs some water, so a bit later she pulls and pushes herself towards the kitchen and puts her head under the tap because why not. It gets a little better. She finds the bottle with some pain-killers and downs a couple of those and it gets a little better again, but only physically. Her Soul still aches like hell and there is nothing she can do.

She slaps her chest, but of course it doesn’t work.

She calls in sick, again, and wonders vaguely when Asgore’s patience will finally run out and she will be kicked out of the Guard. She has no idea what she will do when it happens. She has close to no savings to her name. She never bothered to get any, what with the Guard’s salary. It is huge. She never had problems with counting money and never thought about the bills again after she signed them. What will she do without it?

She doesn’t really care. Maybe Sans will let her work at the hotdog stand. Heh. maybe he will even lend her the couch.

Undyne gets back to bed, curls under the blankets and lies there for a long, long time, wondering. Even her thoughts are barely moving, like half-dead fishes in a dirty tank. The dummy peeks inside through the window and leaves. The phone rings from beneath the bed. Maybe it is an official calling her to tell her she is fired. Maybe it is Sans.

But who cares. Who cares. Who cares.

Who cares if this is the end.

 

***

 

It is all just a fucking mess.

Sans sits on the couch, with his head between his hands. The lamp buzzes above his head. The room looks like a dump, with wrappers on the floor and stains everywhere and fingerprints and spiderwebs, and honestly, it is like his room had a breach and the mess burst through into the rest of the house. It is fucking disgusting.

Sans kicks a can, and it falls over with a ringing sound, spilling the remains of the drink inside. Another stain blossoms on the sticky carpet.

Sans sighs, stands up and walks upstairs, to the left room. The door doesn’t make a sound as he opens it. That order-loving freak.

“Hey”, he calls out. It is a habit. He doesn’t await a response.

Papyrus is right there, silent, still. Sans walks to his bed, squats next to it. He doesn’t really look. He doesn’t need to.

“You know”, he says, “that is just damn selfish”.

There is no response, so he just continues. “You cannot keep that up. Fuck. Undyne is – not good. Well. If you can call the shit she’s got herself into ‘not good’. And me, well, maids are just damn expensive.”

There is no response.

“Hell, it was not supposed to be you”, Sans says, and his voice is deep; bitter. Whatever had him up and running before is finally done with. “Always dancing around. Always having energy. Always enthusiastic about some shit. _You_ never had depression. You never even got _sad_. Damn it!” He clenches his head again. “You are _always alright_. You are _supposed_ to be alright. You get everything on a silver plate, fuck. And it is just unfair. It is unfair that _you_ were the one who-! Why _would_ you ever? _Why_?!”

There is no response. Without looking, Sans reaches out to grab the linen to ground himself. Instead he feels bone. He jerks away.

Papyrus’ hand is cold and lifeless under his touch.

 

***

 

Undyne doesn’t eat, again, because Alphys hasn’t called in to ask her if she did. Maybe the lizard has had enough of her, too. Well. You know the drill.

The food has probably rotten away in any case.

She emerges from the bed later in the evening, because the night is close and night is when the thoughts are loudest, and she doesn’t want to hear those thoughts. Drinking is better. Drinking leaves you lightheaded and funny and chill. Drinking means you don’t have enough brainpower left to do the thinking and the wondering. Drinking means you cannot remember what happened and you cannot remember the night and you cannot remember yourself telling everyone over, and over, and over.

She walks to her closet to get a shirt that hopefully doesn’t feel like a floor-cloth, and the she suddenly stumbles upon a dress. It is black, and long, and ugly, with lots of unnecessary lace and glitter.

Undyne freezes. She pulls the dress out, and it flies away from the closet – lands onto her shaking scarred hands like a butterfly.

Undyne doubles on herself, presses the dress to her face and _howls_.

She keeps going even when there is no air in her lungs, like she wants to squeeze something out, to tear it from inside and spit it like the remains of the alcohol after a long night in the bar. She screams and hugs the dress to herself and it does not get better, _it does not get better_ , they say tears make it better but they don’t, they don’t, they _don’t_.

It is a long, long night. She presses a finger to the place where her eye used to be. She blubbers and it’s some half-apologetic, half-angry nonsense that she'd never think to be able to ever leave her mouth, and she thinks, and she remembers,

and it does not get better _at all_.

 

***

 

Sans wakes up in the morning from a loud knock.

He groans, turning over. He fell asleep on the couch again, and now he feels every bone in his body. His whole body is sticky and stinky. Somebody is banging on his door, and overall this is not the best way to start a morning.

“Whaddya want from me?” he scowls, throwing the door open.

A large red dog jerks away from him. It is wearing the Guard armor, Sans notices with an unwanted clarity. It does not seem to have any weapon, so it’s not here to skewer him. Ah, man.

“R-Royal orders”, the dog says a bit hesitantly. “His Majesty King Asgore Dreemur expects you to appear at the royal grounds shortly. I am to ensure your safety on the way.”

“And to make sure I don’t make a dash towards the forest, huh?” Sans asks, not amused. The dog rolls its eyes. “Well. I am not really in the mood today.”

“What?” The dog is scandalized. “His Majesty-”

But Sans has had enough. He doesn’t have the energy anymore. He cannot keep running. He cannot do shit. He is angry. He is bitter. He is so goddamn _tired_.

“Tell your Majesty”, he hisses, and the dog flinches away from him, “that I am taking a sick leave. Tell your Majesty that he can fucking fire me if he wants. Tell your Majesty that I am quitting. Tell your Majesty I have turned into a slime. Tell your Majesty-” – he is shouting at this point – “that if _he_ could go and do his goddamned job after he lost all his family, it does not mean anyone else can! Tell your Majesty-” – he searches blindly with his hand - “that he can go-” – he grabs the handle – “- **and fuck himself**!”

He slams the door shut. The handle is left hanging on a single nail.

…Wow.

Sans stands there, not hearing anything over the sound of his scream, still ringing on his skull. His mind is so loud that he is deaf. Someone must be screaming. Someone must be banging on the door.

Sans turns around and walks upstairs.

‘Family’. He said ‘all his family’. He cannot remember the last time he said the word. He cannot remember the last time it meant anything to him.

‘Family’.

He drags his feet up. One step, then another. It is such hard work. The sounds outside get louder. His mind is louder still.

Papyrus was “family”.

Papyrus was a “brother”.

When did he last call him that? When did he last think about it? Papyrus was his everything and yet he was such a distant person, idealized, idolized, dream-like, as abstract as a “greater good”.

A “Papyrus”.

Sans presses his palms to the door.

Then, as gently as if he was handling a bird cage, Sans opens it.

 

***

 

Undyne is done sobbing. Tears don’t make things better, but they make things numb. Almost like drinking. Maybe numb _is_ better.

The dress is completely soaked, crumpled, ruined, like a dead butterfly. She still holds on to it.

Someone bangs on her door, shouting something about the Royal orders and such. She does not move. They go away some time later, obviously disappointed with the lack of response.

“I am sorry, Papyrus”, Undyne says. It is the dumbest thing to say, because Papyrus cannot hear her. Papyrus does not even need those words anymore. Maybe he never did.

“I am so sorry”, she says, still, and her face feels wet again. “I am so, so sorry. Nym” - and she chokes. “ _Nympha_. I am so sorry. I couldn’t… first _you_ , and then… and then him, _Paps_ – _Nym_ – you both _died_ , and I couldn't... I couldn't help you, and I am so _sorry_ , I am...”

She feels dumb. She feels tired. She feels full of grief and sadness and regret and despair and loneliness, and she doesn’t want to feel anymore. She doesn’t want it to get _better_. She just wants it to get _numb_.

Maybe, if she tries hard, she will find a bar where Sans won’t think to look for her out of his misplaced _pity_. She used to be _his_ best friend, after all, Sans probably feels responsible…

Undyne stands up on wobbly feet. Fuck, she is getting wasted tonight.

 

***

 

Sans enters the dim room.

“Brother”, he calls, and he means it, because he is in his brother’s room.

Not Papyrus, big and scary. Not Boss, cold and official. Brother. The boy he rescued. The boy he taught to read and write. The boy he used to drag with him everywhere. The boy he raised, practically.

Now that boy lies there, cold and lifeless and grown and scarred all over and _oh god, with level five_ , and suddenly it clicks in Sans’ mind: this lanky huge skeleton, in spiky armor and with attitude and a foul mouth? That is the same boy. The same kid.

Oh god, he is still a kid. He is _seventeen_.

Sans lowers himself, staring helplessly at the scars, at the cracks he got so used to seeing. How could he miss them? When did he convince himself that it was normal? That it was something he could be okay with?

“Paps”, he squeezes out, and something bursts inside him. “Paps, I am so sorry.”

Fuck, he made him fight his battles. He made the sweet little boy fight and kill, because the sweet little boy had to grow mean and strong, and Sans convinced himself that the boy would only thank him later. But the boy didn’t, so Sans got bitter, and he never looked twice at the scars when he thought how that boy owed him everything-

Sans remembers the way Papyrus looked at him, the way he begged for attention, the way his eyes dimmed when Sans shouted or ignored him – _he was busy he was tired why could not the brat understand it is not like he toiled day and night for **him** , of course!_ – the way Papyrus started shouting back, the way he _changed_ …

“God, it is _me_ ”, he breathes out and scoops Papyrus into his arms. “I killed you. God, what did I do. What did I do, brother. What did I do.”

Papyrus is cold and irresponsive in his arms. His eyes are closed. His HP is ticking down steadily. Most likely he won’t see the next morning.

“I am so sorry, god”, Sans says, squinting, petting his _brother’s_ skull just like back then, just like when the kid had nightmares and his _big bro_ had to calm him down. “I am so sorry. Brother, I am so sorry. I killed you. I killed you, god”.

But it is too late. It is too late, too late, _too late_ , Sans is not capable of miracles, and their time is running out so quickly.

“God, I am so sorry. I love you”, he says, and it is sweet, but he is _just a day late_.

 

***

 

Undyne somehow ends up in the house. She is almost sober. Sans doesn’t feel proud for her, but he probably should.

She is crying, and he breaks a little inside as well, and they are both a mess in a messy house, and everything is falling apart and they cannot do a damn thing about it.

They spend the night at Papyrus’ bed, together, not sleeping at all. They are both there when he dusts. It is so quick: he breathes out, just as if he was waking up, and then his body slowly sets on the linen as a cloud of silver dim foam.

Undyne howls, and Sans holds her, because he feels like he should.

“Why?” she asks, over and over. “Why does he have to die? _Why does he have to leave me_?!”

Sans feels like he knows, but he does not say a word. Instead, he holds her and lets her cry, and tries not to think about the little sweet boy that he promised to protect, always.

He tries not to think about the promise he failed.

 

***

 

In the morning, when two units of Royal Guards come to knock at their doors and summon them to King Asgore, they find nothing but empty houses.

A crumpled black dress is missing from Undyne’s closet.

The bed in Papyrus’ room is empty.

Two trails of footprints lead through the snow, further and further in the forest. They coil and twist and turn, past the town, past the stations, past the bridge. They stop right at the weird door in the stone wall.

Snowflakes are already settling on the road. Soon, it is going to be completely covered. All the prints will be wiped away.

It is quiet.

It is so quiet.


End file.
